Liebster Award

If you’ve been in the blogosphere for a while, you may have seen some blogging awards. The Liebster Award is generally given to bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. It’s a nice little award to help generate some attention (and love) to new and up-and-coming bloggers. You can read more about the history of the award here. Angie of Outdoor Running Adventures nominated me. Thank you, Angie, for the recognition. I really appreciate it.

Here are the rules:

• Acknowledge the nominating blogger
• Answer 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you
• 11 random facts about yourself
• List some bloggers with fewer than 200 followers that you really feel deserve a little blogging love!
• Let all of the bloggers know you’ve nominated them. You cannot nominate the blogger that nominated you!
• Post 11 questions for the bloggers you’ve nominated to answer

Answer to Angie’s questions

1. If you could live anywhere in the world (don’t be practical) where would you live? If it’s for short term (a few years), it would be Paris. I’ve been a francophile my entire life and I always dreamed of living in Paris. I’ve visited a few times, but living there would be different than being a tourist. If it’s for the long term, it’s back to the San Francisco Bay Area. I spent 10 years in Berkeley and that part of California became my home. There’s something about the Bay Area that captures people’s hearts and you have a hard time of letting go. I moved away from CA back in 2005 and I still hope that one day that I’ll go back. Living in NYC isn’t bad, but it’s not California. I’m a Californian through and through.
2. What is your favourite hobby/pass-time? Does food count? I’m a foodie, so I’m fairly obsessed with the latest food trends and new restaurant openings. I love to travel (over 22 countries so far) and do other outdoorsy things, such as hiking, and skiing.
3. What do you consider your greatest achievement? My Ph.D. The comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper describes graduate life a little too accurately.
4. Dog or cat person? Definitely dog. I’m deathly allergic to cats.
5. Provide 4 words that describe you. Ben describes me as beautiful, smart, and a pain-in-the-ass. I’ll add quirky too. He doesn’t think I’m quirky, but I think I am.
6. What is your favourite food? Ben would say anything that’s on a small plate. 🙂 Enchiladas or really great tamales (the problem is that there are so many terrible tamales). Mexican food is another food group to Californians. Whenever we leave CA, the first thing we want when we come back is Mexican food.
7. What is the scariest thing you’ve ever done (planned or by accident)? I don’t enjoy being scared or frightened. Ben loves scary psychological thrillers, which I can’t watch. If he watches them, I spend most of the movie covering my eyes and ears imploring him to let me know when it’s over. Consequently I don’t see over half the movie.We cooked a couple of live lobsters once. Ben made me handle one. That took forever because I was so squeamish about touching the lobster while it was still living. I was also afraid of putting in my contact lenses when I first got them and getting my ears pierced (I was 18 years old). I’m a big wuss.
8. What is your favourite post you’ve written (please provide a link)?I wrote this post, How to Make Friends in NYC, which is one of my most popular posts. In fact searching for how to find friends in NYC is one of the top search terms in finding my blog. Making friends in a new city is hard and I wrote this as a way of discussing various strategies that I’ve used. The reason why it’s my favorite post is because I know that this post has helped people. I’ve received a few emails from people who were grateful to find some advice and to know that they weren’t alone in feeling lonely in NYC. It’s easy to feel lonely in a city with millions and I wanted to help.
9. What is your favourite band/singer? My favorite singer is Andy Brown, a Canadian folk-rock singer, who also happens to be a friend of my brother-in-law. Andy is a wonderful singer/writer, whose songs really move me. My favorite band is Atomic Tom, a local NY band that when to LA about a year ago. AT came onto the music scene in a big splash a few years ago with Take Me Out using apps on their IPhones. They’re awesome. I also really love Airborne Toxic Event. Sometimes I even like bands and singers whose names don’t start with A, like The Killers.
10. Who is your favourite author or do you have a favourite book or both? John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany and Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince.
11. Why do you blog? I started A Fast Paced Life because I had been running for some months and had a lot of fun reading other running bloggers. I had kept other diaries and blogs before and missed keeping some sort of written record of my life. I wanted a blog that would reflect my personal life, not just running, hence the name A Fast Paced Life. The name reflects running, living in NYC, and all the other things I do.

11 Random Facts about Myself

1. I have fewer teeth than the average adult. Not only do I not have my wisdom teeth, I also had four other teeth pulled out because I “have a small jaw and large teeth” according to my oral surgeon and orthodontist.
2. I’ve known my best friend longer than my baby sister.
3. As a kid, I really liked looking for errors in dictionaries and encyclopedias. As an adult, I don’t particularly like copy editing.
4. I once worked as a nanny in Belgium.
5. I speak four languages with varying degrees of fluency (English, Korean, French, and German).
6. I love being on a schedule, even when on vacation.
7. I’m a carbon copy of my mother. I look like her, I talk like her, our personalities are the same, etc.
8. I love asking hypothetical questions and thought experiments.
9. I failed the first semester of first grade because I didn’t speak much English. I had no idea what was going on in the classroom.
10. I almost failed third grade because my eyesight was so bad that I couldn’t see what was written on the chalkboard. My grades improved after I got glasses.
11. I have the best mother in the world. My friends would agree. They all like her better than they like me. 🙂

Bloggers I nominate for the Liebster Award

• Running in NJ: He’s one of the few male bloggers on my blog list (why are so many running bloggers female?). The first post I ever read by him was the one on wearing a running skirt. I admire a guy with chutzpah to break strong gender norms. The post was fascinating and I look forward to reading his thoughts on other running matters.
• Run Salt Run: When it rains, it pours. It’s been raining awards and recognition for Salt these days and these awards are richly deserved. She’s an amazingly talented and super fast runner who’s been running regularly for less than a year. I’m in awe of how fast she is in such a short time. Plus she’s really sweet.
• Blessed with Thunder Thighs:(Technically she has more than 200 followers, but it’s just a few more, so I’ll slide her in) A runner from the Bay Area who runs with such joy. I love her positive attitude about her body. Another reason why I like reading her posts is because of the photos of the Bay Area.

11 Questions for the Nominees to Answer

1. How do you describe your running gait? Fast and smooth like a gazelle? Flailing limbs like Phoebe from Friends?
2. What’s your ideal race course like? Flat and fast? Hills? Trails? By the ocean? On mountains?
3. Track attack or long slow distance?
4. You’re running a race. You and another runner are in the lead. The other runner is far enough ahead of you that you can’t catch up before the finish line. Suddenly a few yards from the finish line, the other runner slows down and walk, which allows you to run past and win first place. You later find out that the reason why the other runner slowed down was because he/she thought he/she had already crossed the finish line (the finish line was a bit ambiguous looking). Would you still accept the award for first place?
5. What is your strong point in running?
6. What is your weak point in running?
7. How do you feel about receiving outside aid (e.g., your family or friends handing you a water bottle or Gu, orange slices, etc) during a race? (i.e., do you think this is cheating?)
8. Let’s imagine that you’ve reached your physical peak and now you’re unable to get any faster, regardless of training. If an omnipotent being offered you a deal where if you were to be less intelligent by a certain %, you’ll gain that % in speed, would you take this deal? And if so, what would the % be?
9. Do you have a pre-race ritual/superstition? What is it?
10. If you could get a superpower, what would it be?
11. What goes through your head when a runner passes you during a race?